BASEBALL

BASEBALL; With the Playoffs on the Horizon, Mets Refuse to Look at the Sun

Published: September 7, 1999

Don't expect the Mets to say it; if they uttered anything that sounded like it, they would invite the wrath of the baseball gods to rain down on their heads.

''No,'' Al Leiter said when he was asked if he would say it. ''My name isn't Joe Namath. I'm not guaranteeing anything. When you have 25 more games and you're only four ahead of the other team and two and a half behind the leader, you're not comfortable enough to make a statement like that.''

Leiter, the leader of the Mets' pitching staff, had been asked yesterday after the team's 3-0 victory over San Francisco if he was prepared to say the Mets would be in the playoffs next month, if only as the wild-card team.

''I remember Kelly Gruber always used to say stuff like that,'' Leiter said, recalling his winning seasons in Toronto. ''Everybody would go: 'Kelly, why are you doing this? You're only going to give them another reason to beat you.' ''

So was there anybody in the Mets' clubhouse who would be brazen or foolish enough to make Kelly Gruber-like statements? Try Turk, Leiter whispered. So Turk Wendell, the team's ubiquitous relief pitcher, was asked: Will you say the Mets are going to be in the playoffs?

''I did it once and it backfired,'' Wendell said, at least confirming Leiter's thinking. ''Last year I said we'd beat the Cubs and it didn't happen. I don't want to jinx us anymore.''

Outsiders don't have that concern. If proclaiming on the last Sept. 7 of the 1900's that the Mets will be in the last playoffs of the 1900's jinxes them, so be it. The Mets will open one of two National League division series four weeks from today.

Why shouldn't they? The cautious and the wimpish point to the Cincinnati Reds' remaining schedule. It's easier than the lineup of games the Mets have to play in the final weeks of the season, the timid of heart say. The Reds play two of their remaining 26 games against the first-place Houston Astros. The other games are against teams with losing records, including 11 against the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins, who have the two worst records in the league. The Mets have 6 of their final 24 games against the first-place Atlanta Braves as well as games against the Giants tonight and tomorrow.

But the Mets are where they are because for the last three months they have compiled the best record in the league, better than the Yankees', better than the Braves', the Indians', the Diamondbacks', the Globetrotters'. They have compiled that 57-26 record, which includes only one losing streak as long as three games, primarily on their defense, which has been terrific, and their hitting, which has been equally terrific. The first seven batters in their lineup yesterday have batting averages that start with a 3. Each of their four infielders has an error total with a single digit. Is this any way to make the playoffs? You bet it is.

Now comes the starting pitching, which had been the Mets' least effective cog. The four-hit shutout that Kenny Rogers pitched yesterday against the Giants was no fluke. His acquisition on July 23 will go down as one of the two best in-season N.L. moves this season, Arizona's acquisition of Matt Mantei to be their closer being the other.

Rogers's presence in the rotation, Leiter said, has removed the pressure on the other starters that ''it's got to be me to turn it around.''

Leiter added: ''You know you're getting balance from all the guys now. It's infectious. You feed off each other. You see a guy doing it, you want to do it.''

Before yesterday, the Giants had been shut out only once this season, a statement no other major league team could make. They had suffered that lone 0 111 games ago. Now the Mets have shut them out twice.

Rogers, whose eight starts for the Mets have resulted in seven victories, stymied the Giants all afternoon. It seemed he was either inducing the Giants to hit the ball to Robin Ventura at third base or striking them out. He cooled off a hot Barry Bonds, striking him out three times.

''Barry wasn't the only one who had trouble with Rogers,'' said an impressed Dusty Baker, the Giants' manager. ''Everybody had trouble with Rogers.''

But teams generally have experienced increasing trouble with the Mets' starting pitchers, and their performance could be the key in these last weeks.

''They're coming out a lot more aggressive, trying consciously to give the bullpen a break,'' Mike Piazza, their catcher, said. ''They're pitching ahead in the count, making hitters swing at their pitch and depending on the infield to get the outs.''

That infield. ''Any ball hit in the infield, you're out,'' Baker said. When Rogers got in trouble, the manager added, ''He relied on the at-em ball, right to Robin Ventura.''

Three third-out line drives, five groundouts, including two for the third out, meaning Ventura ended five of the nine innings.